A shadow appeared at the end of the path. Recognizing Father Elias, Isidoro got up and went to meet him. He led the priest into the hovel, trying not to wake Costantino. But Costantino slept lightly. He woke and heard someone talking about him.

‘It would be better if he left,’ the priest was saying, in a grave voice. ‘Much better.’

But Costantino did not leave. Days went by, the people stopped pestering him, and he was able to move around the village without being an object of curiosity.

With the money he had earned in prison he bought leather and soles and thread, but he did not start to work. Every day he bought meat, fruit, and wine, and he ate and drank a lot, pretending that Isidoro was doing likewise. The fisherman’s hospitality weighed on him, he was afraid that the village people might think he was scrounging, and he made a point of being generous to Isidoro and to everyone else. He took crowds of acquaintances to the tavern, where they all got drunk while, with a great deal of embellishment and exaggeration, he told the story of his life in prison. His money soon went. When Isidoro scolded him he said, ‘I have no children, I have no one to think of. Leave me alone.’ He was expecting a legacy from his murdered uncle, a legacy that his relatives had promised to restore to him without recourse to law. ‘Then I’ll sell everything and go away,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a hundred scudi, Isidoro.’

The poor fisherman wanted nothing. He only wanted Costantino to be good, industrious, and not false, the way he had been before the disaster. The old man sensed that the younger one was putting on an act and he was deeply grieved. Often he caught Costantino with tear-filled eyes. Then Isidoro’s old heart leapt with joy.

‘What’s the matter, son?’ he would ask. Costantino would laugh, but with tears of sorrow coursing down his cheeks.

Sometimes they went leech-gathering together. While Isidoro stood with his bare legs immersed in stagnant water at a place where the brook was still, Costantino lay in the rushes, told stories, and gazed at the horizon with a strange nostalgia.